On my first day of work at Honda's
headquarters in Tokyo, I walked into the seventh-floor
Administration Department and stared into a
black-haired sea of Honda employees. The Japanese men were
dressed in dark business suits, but the women wore blue polyester
knee-length skirts and matching vests. I was shocked to see only
women in uniforms. They looked like tall Girl
Scouts, missing only merit badges and knee socks.

More than one hundred desks and at least as many
people filled the wide-open office space, and considering
the number of people it seemed suspiciously quiet. Two
women approached me looking like paper cut-out dolls in
blue uniforms, white blouses, and black, shoulder-length
hair. Nothing about them seemed particular enough
for me to grasp; if they were to turn back into the crowd of
people I felt sure I would never find them
again.

In polite Japanese one of the women asked me to follow
her. We walked down a long, empty hallway. No one
spoke. We stopped in front of a closed door and one of the
women knocked timidly. Then she opened the door which
led into a small, dingy storage room; brown cardboard
boxes stood along the windowless walls. The women
effortlessly slipped off their shoes before stepping up onto
a low landing. I imitated their actions.

Without saying a word, the two women began digging
around in the boxes; when I realized what they were
looking for, a shiver ran up my spine. The boxes were full
of uniforms. All I wanted to do was run away from the
room; but I had to stand there pretending not to hear them
discuss my waist size.

I was wearing a new cream-colored suit--a light wool,
tunic-style Liz Claiborne design I had purchased just weeks
before at Nordstrom with one of my first paychecks. A
pretty beige briefcase was slung over my shoulder, a
graduation present from Grandma Mozelle, and I wore
matching beige pumps. I had tried to mold myself into the
image of an international corporate woman--an image that
did not include polyester.

I hadn't minded wearing a uniform when I worked on the
assembly line in Ohio. Everyone there, including the
president, wore the same white coveralls with a red name
patch on the front. The only problem I'd had then was that
the newness of the clean, stiff cotton betrayed me as a
temporary college kid, so I'd had to make liberal use of
black sealer paint to give myself a broken-in look.

There had been times in my life when I actually
welcomed uniforms. In elementary school I idolized my
neighbor Kiva Guss who was a Grandview High School
cheerleader. Every Friday I watched her leave home
wearing a smart blue and white pleated skirt and a sweater
with our school's roaring bobcat emblem on the
front. Wearing the uniform was part of my motivation to try
out for the cheerleading squad when I got to high school. I
wanted the uniform to set me apart from the other girls. I
wanted it to tell everyone that I was part of an elite and
talented group.

"Please, take it," said one of the women handing me a
skirt as though it was the latest design from Issey Miyake.
The material was thin and insubstantial. This uniform
offered no expression of status--it sent an entirely different
message. It said, "I'm just a woman; don't take me seriously
and don't treat me with respect because I am as replaceable
as this polyester."

I could see by the woman's expression that I was
expected to wear the uniform; my resistance would not he
understood. But I felt like I should put up some kind of
fight. I wanted to formally register my displeasure before
submitting. Shouldn't someone take note that I was
consciously making a choice to fit in here? I wanted credit
for compromise, but instead a got a perfunctory smile. I
took the skirt behind the privacy curtain to change.

The skirt was simply cut and had a zipper in the back.
As I got ready to step in, I noticed a small paper tag
attached to the waistband. In Japanese characters it said
"Ms. Tanaka." She must have been the employee who had
previously wore this uniform. I wondered if she had retired
from work to marry. Had she done her time and, like so
many women, lived with her parents to save money for her
big wedding day? I knew that she had not been promoted
out of the uniform because all women, no matter what job
they did or how long they had worked at Honda, wore the
same uniform.

I did not want to follow in Ms. Tanaka's footsteps
even though I didn't know where they would go. I was
twenty-two and new to this corporate world; but I felt
certain that if she had started by stepping into this
polyester straitjacket her footsteps would lead someplace
that I didn't want to go.

I stepped out from behind the privacy curtain dressed in
Ms. Tanaka's discarded uniform. My clones smiled
pleasantly. "It looks fine," one said as the other nodded in
agreement. They gave me two uniforms to take home along
with an oatmeal-colored long-sleeved blouse which I
noticed was not mandatory. They were both wearing short-sleeved,
nonprescription blouses of their own.

When I got back to my hotel room I put on the entire
uniform and laughed hopelessly at my hideous reflection.
The exaggerated collar of the blouse touched my chin, and
the holes of the vest constricted my arms. My image was
nothing like I had anticipated. As if to capture this point of
departure I used my self-timing camera and took a picture.

* * *

It had been the same month two years earlier when I had
arrived under very different circumstances as a twenty-year-old
exchange student to spend my junior year at
Waseda University. On that first night in Tokyo, I had gone
with a small group of students to explore local bars. We
immediately discovered that if we spoke a few words of
Japanese, red-faced, drunken businessmen would buy us
beer. We went from bar to bar drinking free beer and
practicing our textbook-inspired introductions. That night, I
learned that in the eyes of many Japanese I was singularly
intriguing because I did not have black hair but could utter
Japanese syllables that made sense.

My particular group of exchange-student friends, like
me, were continually searching for the quintessential
Japanese experience. Unlike sonic of the other Americans,
we were not interested in re-creating a Little Los Angeles or
Little Ann Arbor on the Waseda campus. We were the kind
of exchange students who immediately started drinking
green tea and earnestly tried to eat everything--from
spaghetti to yogurt--with chopsticks.

We found inherent value in participating in almost any
activity that involved Japanese people who did not speak
English--activities like camping with the 4-H Club or
practicing grueling martial arts that we never would have
considered doing in America. In our minds, going to Tokyo
Disneyland with other exchange students ranked much
lower than attending a traditional tea ceremony dressed in
full kimono with one's host family. An adventure at a love
hotel was in and of itself a valuable cultural experience, but
going there with a new Japanese lover was considerably
more interesting than going there with an old beau visiting
from Missouri.

This authenticity-ranking applied to our choice of
everything from extracurricular clubs to part-time jobs.
When I got my job working as a weekend Welcome Lady in
the Honda showroom I felt I had exceeded the authenticity
quotient in every way.

In preparation for my job, Honda provided a two-day
training course for me on how to be a Welcome Lady. I
learned how to graciously accept business cards and how
to delicately decline sexual advances without using the
word "no." Above all, our job as Welcome Ladies was to
smile and create a friendly atmosphere for the customers.
The Welcome Plaza was a place for them to relax.
The most expensive item a visitor could buy was a rum
raisin ice cream cone at the California Fresh snack counter.

The eight Welcome Ladies were in their early twenties.
They wore an outfit that reminded me of the television
show The Jetsons: blue short-sleeved tops with pink piping
that flared out at the waist, white skirts, and high-heeled
white pumps. Manicures were a requirement, but no rings
were allowed. All the women had the long, well-coifed hair
that comes only from hour-long styling sessions. Their
makeup and glossy pink lips were flawless and checked
every hour. All day we smiled and greeted customers and
handed out brochures. On special occasions, the Welcome
Ladies stood on platforms next to sparkling new Honda
products and used the soft, agreeable tones of formal
Japanese to explain its features into a microphone.

I was treated as a guest by the women and sometimes
even by the customers themselves. The Welcome Ladies
included me in after-work drinking parties, took me on day-trips,
and told me secrets about turbulent and clandestine
love affairs. Young men in thousand-dollar leather riding
gear and schoolgirls wearing sailor-suit uniforms asked
to have their pictures taken with me and requested that I
autograph their Honda brochures.

At six in the evening the thank-you-and-goodbye
soundtrack played as we ushered all the visitors out the
sliding glass doors, bowing and smiling sweetly as though
it pained us to bring the eight-hour workday to a close.
After the doors were locked and the bright lights dimmed,
all the Welcome Ladies lined up in a row facing the
showroom manager. With our hands clasped
gracefully, we continued to smile as the manager made a
few closing remarks. We listened politely, as though with
great interest, then bowed to him in unison saying,
"Otsukaresama deshita, You are the tired one."

The Welcome Ladies then retreated into the dressing
room, where a shocking transformation took place. They
shed the Joan Jetson costumes and put on expensive,
funky black dresses. They concealed their pink lips in deep
red tones and reapplied eye makeup several shades darker.
Checking to make sure their cigarettes were pocketed, the
women emerged from the Welcome Plaza purged of their
girlishness.

I enjoyed watching this transformation, and I admired
the women for it. Their new appearance was rebellious and
in a way explained how they could generate eight
continuous hours of sticky-sweet pinkness to strangers
and then listen nightly to a patronizing speech from the manager on
how we would have to try harder to be more friendly the next day.

During the year of weekends that I worked as a Welcome
Lady, I never went beyond the first-floor Welcome Plaza of
Honda's Headquarters. I knew there was a bank of
elevators that transported people to the building above,
but I had no idea what it would be like.

* * *

"This is an intelligent building," a young woman from
the Personnel Department said as she handed me a
schedule for the next six days. "We will begin your
orientation with a tour of the headquarters," she explained.

I sat at a table in the center of the seventh-floor
Administration Department across from this woman, who
was dressed exactly like me in blue polyester. All
around us was a buzz of activity: phones ringing, people
moving around and in between aisles of desks and cabinets
that gave some order to the huge open office space. I had
hoped that wearing the uniform would have at least helped
me blend in, but instead I felt curious eyes watching me and
sensed people wondering, "Who's that redhead in the
uniform?"

The orientation schedule was meticulously organized
into daily and hourly columns according to the twenty-four
hour clock. Lunch at 13:00, a lecture at 14:30, and the end of
the workday at 17:30. Each event on the schedule included
a room number and a list of participants' names.

Just as Mr. Yoshida had promised, the woman told me
that the Personnel Department would help me get settled in
Tokyo--set up a bank account, review company policy, and,
most importantly, find a place to live. My understanding
was that I would choose from two or three apartments
found by the Personnel Department. I was familiar enough
with the city to have an idea where I wanted to locate, but I
had never looked for my own place so I was glad to have
their help. As I was a foreign employee,
the company would also pay my rent. I assumed
there would be a ceiling on how much could be spent, so I
asked the woman how much was allowed.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about the amount," she
said. "We've already found a place for you to live."

"What?" I asked in English, hoping that I had
misunderstood her.

"It's all settled. We'll go visit the apartment later this
week," she said and pointed to the schedule. "See here.
`Visit apartment in Nerima.'"

I was stunned. Nerima was over an hour away from
headquarters by train, including several transfers. But more
than the location, I couldn't believe that I didn't have any
choice in the matter--especially with something as important
as my home for the next two years. The woman explained
that another foreign employee had recently been transferred
to a facility outside Tokyo and that I would be taking over
the recently vacated apartment. It was obvious from her
explanation that the Personnel Department had taken care
of absolutely everything.

* * *

Honda's intelligent building was like a self-reliant city. In
addition to eight business floors, a cafeteria, and the
Welcome Plaza on the first floor, the building housed a
travel agency, a bank, and a dry-cleaning service. One floor
had a health clinic including a pharmacy and dental office;
there was an exercise room, a coffee shop, a VIP restaurant,
a gift shop, and a formal Japanese tatami room.

What made the building intelligent was the internal
computer system that operated like a network of nerves
throughout the building. Communication between the
intelligence network and the employees took place through
a magnetically coded identification card. So that attendance
and overtime could be monitored, every day employees ran
their identification cards through an electronic sensor
located on each floor. The network went up the center of
the sixteen-story building like a spinal column. Other
sensors throughout the building controlled air conditioning
and lights. The cash registers in the coffee shop and
cafeteria were also in the link, so all purchases were
recorded on the identification card and then automatically
deducted from the employee's monthly paycheck.

The woman from Personnel who explained all this to me
was Ms. Uno. She was in her mid-twenties and spoke
cautious English, carefully articulating each syllable. She
didn't make the usual language mistakes like replacing the L
sound with an R and calling me "Rora" or telling me it was
time for "runch." Often, before speaking, she would pause,
and her eyes would dart around the room as though she
were searching for the correct words spelled out on the
walls.

I learned that Ms. Uno had been hired right out of
college as one of the first career-path female employees at
Honda. Unlike most women who were hired as clerks, she
was trained along with the male employees. She spoke
fluent French and English and, compared with the other
women I had seen on the seventh floor, had an unparalleled
flair for wearing polyester with style.

Ms. Uno patiently guided me through my first days of
work. She seemed confident and well organized. My
admiration for her grew, and like a friendless camper I
attached myself to this knowledgeable counselor. Our first
days consisted of a series of meetings with managers in the
company who taught me about the history of Honda and
company policy. My Japanese wasn't good enough to
understand the lectures, so Ms. Uno acted as a translator.

The first lecture was on the "History and Management
Philosophy of Honda." A man in his fifties from the
Training Department met us in a large conference room on
the fifteenth floor. We gathered at one end of a long table,
the speaker on one side, myself opposite him, and Ms. Uno
in between but just out of the speaker's direct line of sight.
From the moment the meeting started I saw a side of Ms. Uno
that disturbed me.

"Wouldn't you like to sit here?" she asked the speaker,
motioning to another chair that looked more comfortable.
"Shall I order some coffee?" she asked him, waiting for his
nod before placing the call. When we started the meeting,
she sat somberly, as though banished from conversation,
and quietly translated his words. She seemed to withdraw
into herself, occupying the smallest space her body could
possibly manage. When the lecturer stopped for a break
she asked if she could clean his ashtray. Her comments
were barely acknowledged with smoky nods. I couldn't
understand why he was treating her this way. The scenario
was repeated every time a new manager showed up for a
lecture.

During one lecture I stopped the speaker to ask a
question. Not only was I curious, but I thought that an
informed question would show the speaker that I was
interested in his subject. Later, Ms. Uno told me that I had
been rude.

"When you ask a question you need to be more polite,"
she said. "Next time use this phrase first: `Moshiwake
gozaimasen ga, chotto kikitai to omotte orimasu.'" She
recited this phrase again: "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but
I was wondering if I could ask you something." It seemed
as familiar to her lips as her own name. Over and over again
I repeated her until I had mastered the unfamiliar sounds.

The apartment situation still concerned me. Even
though I hadn't even seen it, I wanted to resist it. I wanted
a choice. Corporate authority already determined
how to speak, what to wear, and how to behave,
When would my opinion count? I was perfectly willing to
give up space in order to live closer to the city. As long as I
could find a place within the budget I didn't think it was the
company's business where I lived. I couldn't move into the
Nerima apartment without at least voicing my
dissatisfaction, so I had a talk with Ms. Uno and let her
know that I was unhappy with the idea of living way out in
Nerima. If this was the only choice, I told her I would look
for an apartment on my own. She sucked in her breath and
looked at me as though I had announced that I had decided
to leave the country.

Ms. Uno looked distraught as I explained my feelings,
but she agreed to ask her boss about it. She timidly
approached a man sitting at a cluster of desks and bowed
her head repeatedly as she spoke. The man hardly looked
up from what he was doing. Ms. Uno's shoulders were
hunched, her head was down and her hands were clasped.
Again I felt disturbed by her subservience. The man barked
a few words and Ms. Uno retreated, walking backwards.
She sat down at the table and reported his response in
English. "You will take the Nerima apartment," she said,
shaking her head. "This is the rule." Suddenly I noticed
that the armholes of my uniform seemed unbearably tight.

It seemed like every time I approached the Personnel
Department I left feeling disappointed. One day I asked Ms.
Uno how to order my business cards. I had purposely
delayed having a card made while I was still in the U.S.
because I wanted one with both English and Japanese. She
deferred to her boss for an answer. Through her he told me
that I wouldn't be needing a business card. None of the
other women working in the executive
office had business cards, so I wouldn't get one
either. I protested and tried to argue that surely in the next
two years I would be in situations where having a business
card would be useful. "What if someone gives me a card
and I don't have anything to give back?" I asked him. He
handed me a few generic cards that said "Honda Motor
Company, Ltd." with a blank line underneath where a name
could be written. "Use these," he said.

In the evenings after orientation I returned to the
President Hotel located just around the corner from
headquarters. After a day of speaking in Japanese the hotel
lobby offered the illusion of escape, where guests sat in
European-style antique chairs reading the International
Herald Tribune and a corps of bell boys dressed like a
marching band called me "Madam."

The only illusion my room offered was that of being in a
cell. The room seemed to be a complete unit, as though
every piece had been perfectly engineered to fit into place.
Although the bed was designed for one person no taller
than five and a half feet, it took up two thirds of the room
and touched three of the four walls. A small nightstand
with a lamp touched the bed and was connected to a
narrow desk which took up the fourth wall. On the desk was
a mini entertainment center consisting of a compact twelve-inch
television, along with a tea set and complimentary tea
bag. Next to the desk, a small luggage rack loomed over a
pair of beige plastic slippers.

In a small closet-sized room was the unit-bath. It was
one continuous piece of putty-colored plastic with a drain
in the center of the floor making it look like what you might
find on an airplane if the bathrooms included
a half-sized tub and shower. Like a one-man band with the
drum, cymbals, and banjo all included, the unit was so
compact that I could shower, brush my teeth, and flush the
toilet all at the same time.

I couldn't do much in my room except lie on the bed and
think. Usually I brewed my complimentary tea bag and
worried about work. Besides the uniform and the way
women were treated, the apartment situation troubled me.
Taking the apartment represented total compliance. I felt
the corporate walls forcing me into a mold as though I were
trapped inside a Fisher-Price playhouse, in which each
piece of furniture fit perfectly into its assigned space and
had a single hole for a peg-shaped doll. I didn't want to be
that doll, and the more threatened I felt, the more I wanted
to resist.

I decided to call Mr. Yoshida and ask his advice. He
didn't take sides but suggested that I present specific and
convincing reasons to the Personnel Department as to why
I wanted to live somewhere besides Nerima. He thought I
should find an alternative apartment and gave me a general
idea of what would be a reasonable rent. Because I was
thinking about living near my parents' friends, he also
thought I could make the argument that living there would
be safer for me. Mr. Yoshida said he would call the
Personnel Department the following week if I wanted him
to, but I got the feeling that he thought I should try and
work this one out on my own.

I called one of my mother's Japanese friends. She
welcomed me to Japan and asked how everything was
going. I told her that things were great and that I would
soon be looking for an apartment in her neighborhood. She
offered to help me look, and we made a date to meet.

When I hung up I was suddenly overwhelmed with
sadness and started to cry. I thought about calling a friend
in America, but it seemed so far away and I wasn't even
sure that I could explain my feelings. I didn't want to admit
to anyone, especially to myself, that my dream
job was not everything I thought it would be. I felt more
alone than ever before. My head ached from crying, so I
swallowed a packet of bitter Japanese aspirin powder, took
a bath, and ate an entire chocolate bar.

The headquarters building stood on one corner of an
intersection in Aoyama, a chic business district in Tokyo
where wide meets house boutiques, cafes, and showrooms.
The Honda building was less than two years old
and was the most modern-looking concrete high-rise on the
block.

The front of the building protruded out toward the
corner. Each of the sixteen floors had a window running
round it that sat back from the smooth, gray stone surface
of the building, making it look like a modern
bunker. The entryway was clad in austere steel and glass. It
was easy to miss the understated sign above the sliding
glass doors that said HONDA.

On the corners across the street to the right and left of
headquarters were similar tall concrete buildings. Kitty-corner
from Honda was a conspicuous gap in the
landscape. No building or construction existed--only a six-foot
high, moss-covered stone wall. In this bustling
commercial district, the empty corner stuck out like a
gaping hole in a smile.

The stone wall circled an area bigger than the size of a
hundred football fields. It belonged to the Imperial
Family and housed an immense garden, a guest palace, and
lots of wide-open space. Commoners were not permitted
inside the walls and were even discouraged from
viewing the grounds. When a thirty-two-story building
across the street from the garden was built, a special
agreement was made to prevent people from looking inside
the wall. Not a single window exists on the entire north face
of that building.

With help from my mother's friend, I found an apartment
in her neighborhood that was within my budget and only a
thirty-five-minute subway ride away from headquarters. I
presented my case to the Personnel Department,
emphasizing, as Mr. Yoshida had suggested, that I be
allowed to live close to a family friend who would surely be
helpful in case of an emergency. Ms. Uno's boss was
unsympathetic but said he would consider my request. I
went back to my hotel room that night feeling entirely at
his mercy. There was nothing more I could do. I had
decided that I wouldn't bring Mr. Yoshida into the battle; it
was clear to me that this was the first of many to come.

When I got back to hotel room I put on my favorite
baggy pants, put my hair in a pony-tail, and walked
around the neighborhood looking for ice cream. The cool,
dainty scoops didn't seem like enough on the hot
September evening, so I ate three.

The next day Ms. Uno told me that we wouldn't be
going to visit the Nerima apartment because her boss had
decided I didn't have to live there. Arrangements would be
made to rent the apartment I had found.